Emotional Incest and Child Abuse. [The Island House by Amanda Brittany]

A DARK FAMILY SECRET

When Alice’s father dies after a tragic hit and run, his death stirs up unanswered questions about her childhood. Who was her mother, why did her father never speak of the past, and why can’t she remember anything before the age of seven?

AN ISLAND CUT OFF

But when she receives an anonymous letter containing a photograph of a refurbished gothic guesthouse surrounded by water, and an invitation to stay, old memories fight to resurface.

Alice has visited before. She is certain of it.

WHO WILL SURVIVE?

Convinced the clues to her past lie at the hotel, she checks in. But once on the island, a wild storm rages, waves crash violently into the rocks, and the house is cut off by the roaring sea.

Then two guests are found dead. And the hotel owner is missing. Will Alice ever uncover her secret past?

And will anyone leave the island alive?

An utterly gripping thriller that will leave you reading long into the night! Fans of The Guest List and The Sanatorium will love this nail-biting read.

Things were so easy when I was hating on our protagonist for being a spoiled, inconsiderate guest, for being an uncompromising and selfish partner. Then we made the switch from assumed brat to most innocent victim and everything went south. Amanda Brittany's The Island House is a gothic horror story that, having read it in its entirety, I can't say I enjoyed, at least not as much I would have liked to. Great gothic horror usually has clear victims to root for and clear perpetrators with bizarre motives. Oftentimes, the villain, who despite some understandable trauma, goes to ridiculous extremes with their logic, beyond the point of sympathy. 

In The Island House, our protagonist Alice is set up from the beginning as some suppressing a traumatic childhood linked to the titular house, propping her up as the victim who must find the truth and fight for her life. Her sometimes rude demeanor and imaginative jealous made her annoying however, paradoxically keeping me further intrigued. The story oscillated between the 2010s and the 1990s, persisting in that structure of suppressed memories and traumatic childhood. And while that was not not the case, the villain of the story was pitiful and so tormented. Abused and neglected as a child and later on in adulthood sexual assaulted, Verity's madness was horrifying. Sure, that history does not excuse whatever atrocities and perversions she would later commit, but when contrasting the two characters the sympathy scale tipped in her favor. Then came the biggest cop-out of all cop-outs. 

Out of nowhere, the child POV leading the '90s narrative was not Alice's, but in fact her cousin Faith's. Socially inept, emotionally dysregulated and stunted Faith, had been the mastermind behind it all! For some reason. Suddenly, Alice was the bigger victim, apparently. Having been ignored by her father from birth and actively neglected by the aunt who was to raise her, only by happenstance did her father discover the truth and extricate Alice and himself from their environment. Her father, Hugh, who, likely due to his childhood abuse and neglect, never took it upon himself to set boundaries in the emotionally incestuous relationship his sister had with him, the father who didn't care for his child until the tensest of moments called for it, was suddenly the hero.

The whole dynamic of Verity wanting to play emotional house with her brother was very jarring and wholly disgusting. Hugh doing the absolute least, while reflective of the dependent dynamic he grew up in, in terms of any practical preparations, for himself, for his wife, for his daughter was very annoying. Because honestly, who lets their pregnant wife be a position to potentially give birth on an island known for its isolation? Leon was annoying outright. No one cared for Mitch and he got what he desired. But the sudden reveal of Faith's plans and motivations were senseless and I didn't buy into them. Maybe they came too late in the story or maybe they were just weak regardless. The result in any case is that that angle of the story took my rating down a peg. And then you add onto that Gabriela's last minute role? I'm giving The Island House 3 stars. It's just what feels right. 

 The Island House (ISBN:9780008362898) was published August 2021.